Quinnipiac settles women's sports funding dispute

Published 11:40 pm, Friday, April 26, 2013

As will women's track and field, cross-country and rugby. The decision come as part of a proposed settlement that will designate nearly $6 million to improving female sports, their facilities and their staffing at the NCAA Division I school in Hamden.

Quinnipiac will also pay $15,000 in damages to the five remaining volleyball plaintiffs who challenged the school's elimination of the sport to save $70,384.

"We got a major victory for Title IX," said Robin Sparks, Quinnipiac's former women's volleyball coach, who brought the fight with six of her team members in 2009 and watched it become a class action suit involving all of Quinnipiac's female athletes. "This isn't just a win for the female athletes at Quinnipiac, but for all female student-athletes across the country."

Sparks, who previously settled her part of the case, now works as the senior director of policy and research for the Bridgeport Child Advocacy Center while coaching club volleyball in the Waterbury area.

"For me, it's very exciting to have been part of this," Sparks said, "particularly in seeing 18- and 19-year-old women stand up for their rights, be heard and, in the end, make a difference for all."

Under the terms of a settlement that U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill is expected to approve, Quinnipiac agrees not to eliminate the volleyball program and will add two more scholarships over the next two years, maintain a women's rugby team with nine full scholarships that will play a full Division I schedule by 2014-15, add four scholarships to its women's cross-country team and six scholarships for athletes who participate in non-distance events on its women's track and field teams as well as provide better facilities and more full-time coaches.

Underhill set June 20 for a fairness hearing, at which time anyone who wishes to comment either pro or con will be allowed to address him. Those wishing to do so must send notification to the judge by June 4.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs, Jonathan Orleans and Alex Hernandez of Pullman & Comley; Sandra Staub, the American Civil Liberties Union's legal director in Connecticut; and Kristen Galles, a Virginia lawyer who specializes in Title IX cases, prevailed in nearly every proceeding from obtaining a court order that saved women's volleyball to the U.S. Appeals Court decision that upheld Underhill's finding that the school provided failed to provide "substantially proportionate athletic participation opportunities" to females as it did males.

"The plaintiffs won going away clearly on every single issue," said Donna Lopiano, the former Raybestos Brakettes star, University of Texas women's athletic director, Title IX expert and now head of Sports Management Resources, a Shelton-based university athletics consulting firm. "Now the school has to ante up some really significant money."

Lopiano said Underhill's previous rulings "broke new ground" in determining that schools can't load up their track teams with female athletes and then not allow them to compete in events.

"The judge put schools on notice that if you get sued and the Office of Civil Rights comes, everyone is going to look at the intent and effect of what you do," Lopiano said. "I suspect Quinnipiac got tired of losing and paying huge legal bills not only to their lawyers, but to opposing counsel."

Orleans agreed that this case sent a message to universities that the courts are going to "enforce Title IX strictly" and schools "need to be serious about complying with the regulations."

"Not only did we keep the volleyball program intact, but we got additional scholarships, additional facilities, improved playing and practice fields for volleyball and other women's sports," he said. "Quinnipiac deserves to be applauded for coming to the table and helping craft this settlement."

Lynn Bushnell, Quinnipiac's vice president for public affairs, said the settlement allows the school "to better use its resources to invest in our student-athletes and our sports and recreation programs."

She added that the status and continuation of the Acrobatics and Tumbling program which Quinnipiac sought to replace volleyball with until Underhill determined that was not a true sport, will be reviewed.

Under the proposed agreement, Quinnipiac, whose men's hockey team was the runner-up in the NCAA tournament earlier this month, will spend $5 million to improve its women's athletic facilities; $450,000 to improve its women's athletic programs by providing additional coaches, access to training facilities and conditioning services; another $175,000 over each of the next three years on recruiting, equipping, feeding and transporting its female athletes and hire a referee to monitor its progress in complying with Title IX.

It also must develop a Title IX nondiscrimination policy and grievance procedure, which it will disseminate on its website and in its student handbook, athlete handbook, and faculty/staff handbook no later than the beginning of the 2013-14 academic year.

If Quinnipiac eliminates a women's varsity athletic team, it will replace the team with an NCAA sport that provides a comparable number of participation opportunities. This provision does not apply to women's varsity volleyball, which Quinnipiac will not eliminate.